Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Berkman-CALI collaboration on OA legal texts

Gene Koo, Berkman and CALI to Create a Legal Commons, The Filter, July 10, 2007 (scroll about 40% down the file).  Excerpt: 

...[T]he Internet is opening vast new possibilities for scholarship and teaching that can transform how the next generation of lawyers learn.

To capture these opportunities, the Berkman Center is partnering with CALI (Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction) to research and develop new methods of scholarship and teaching that exploit the Internet's open and collaborative possibilities. CALI is a nonprofit consortium comprising over 200 American and Canadian law schools that has long been a leader in pushing innovation and exploring the intersection between computers and legal education....

[T]he Berkman-CALI partnership will ...[create] a commons where law professors can share their teaching materials: syllabi, "course packs," and even entire textbooks. Dubbed "eLangdell" after the Harvard dean who invented the casebook, the project will enable law teachers to assemble disparate resources into a structured coursepack or textbook, publish them to the class, and share these assembled materials with colleagues....

In supporting eLangdell, Berkman advances its mission of opening access to knowledge in an area of scholarship particularly close to home. In a practical way, with real constituents, eLangdell puts into action ideas about collaboration, intellectual property, and networked knowledge that Berkman faculty and fellows have been developing for years. A potential revolution in publishing awaits....

Press Release Announcing Berkman-CALI Effort [June 19, 2007]

CALI's John Mayer on "common casebooks"